Feeling Like a Ghost

Generally, what captivates me most about old found photos and documentary footage is that sense of looking at ghosts. Watching this film of London in 1926, I experience the reverse: of being myself a ghost from the future visiting people from the past. It happens as the camera rolls along Petticoat Lane, from 4 minutes 15 seconds in. The result for the viewer is an almost unbearably poignant connection with crowds of ‘London’s husbands amus[ing] themselves while London’s wives cook the Sunday dinner’.

The film is from a series of rare colour travelogues shot by Claude Friese-Greene.